My HealthySELF: How Author Jennifer Miller Avoids Sitting All Day

In an age of instant gratification -- write a Tweet, get an @-reply! -- it's hard to believe that anyone could work on, well, anything for seven whole years. But that's just what young author Jennifer Miller did for her debut novel, The Year of the Gadfly. After publishing a nonfiction book, Inheriting the Holy Land, in 2005 (at age 24!), Miller entered an MFA program with an idea for a novel.

"After four years, I completed my first draft, And my agent read it and told me I'd have to throw out the entire second half and rewrite the first half," Miller recalls. "This was a moment where either I give up or I completely throw myself into it, and the idea of giving up made me too anxious."

And now, there's Gadfly, a young adult novel for grown-ups. It's the story of Iris Dupont, a student journalist (whose only friend is the ghost of Edward R. Murrow) who becomes obsessed with exposing the truth about the secret society at her super-competitive prep school.

Miller sat down to talk to us (full disclosure: this blogger is a personal friend of Miller's!) about the story behind Gadfly, coping with anxiety and her not-so-guilty pleasure.

Jennifer Miller (photo by Diana Levine)

How were you able to stay engaged in working on this for so long?

Part of the story is based on my relationship with my high school boyfriend, who was killed the summer before our senior year. I wanted to tell Ben’s story — I felt an allegiance to him, and I was so personally invested in the story that I was committed to making it right. I’m not sure I would have been able to finish if it hadn’t had anything to do with my own life.

What did you learn from the process?

It taught me that every criticism is an opportunity to make something better. Brainstorming with my agent and my husband, who is a magazine editor, forced me to break out and try something new with the story. The character of Iris didn’t even exist in my first draft! And she’s the best part of the book.

What would people be surprised to know about being a writer?

The hardest part for me is sitting all day. I do yoga every morning in my apartment, and I focus on stretching the muscles that get tight when you’re sitting — I do a lot of sun salutations, and I listen to Morning Edition on my NPR iPad app while I do it. I actually have to listen to the broadcast from Yuma or San Francisco because I get up too late to listen to the New York show!

How else do you stay active?

Now that it’s getting warmer, I’m getting back into running. I’ll listen to podcasts while I do it and go for half an hour or 45 minutes. I also try to get up and move around a lot during the day. I’ll use grocery shopping as a way to get out and move and be around people.

What’s your biggest source of entertainment?

I read a lot of books, listen to a lot of music and watch a lot of TV. I’m a TV junkie! And I don’t feel bad about it, because I write for a living, and there’s so much quality TV right now — watching quality dramas is so good for my narrative, character development and storytelling skills. I also love comedies like 30 Rock, though!

What have you been reading lately?

I loved This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman. It’s the story of a family that gets caught up in an online sex scandal. But I spend a lot of time browsing bookstores — I can go in and stay for a couple of hours.

What’s your biggest challenge?

Anxiety. So I’ve been trying to be more mindful of the tunnels my mind can go down. I mean, I have a book coming out — it’s so exciting, but it’s a lot of pressure. I really want it to be a success and allow me to keep doing what I love to do. So it’s a challenge for me to step back from that pressure and focus on the excitement of right now.

What cause are you most passionate about?

Seeds of Peace: It’s an organization that provides leadership training and conflict resolution to teens from regions of conflict. They have a summer camp in Maine, and they bring teens from Israel and Palestine and other regions of conflict, and they live together for a month and learn to work together for peace.

What advice would you give aspiring writers?

What I’d emphasize to anyone who’s interested in an artistic field is learning to turn setbacks into opportunities. I probably wrote 10 drafts of The Year of the Gadfly. You just have to be in for a marathon!